


Thinking, Knowing, Wishing

by slasher48



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alcohol, Depressing, Familial Abuse, M/M, Post-Deposition, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slasher48/pseuds/slasher48
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: Eduardo's darkest hour. (She was waiting for abuse or non-con. I gave her this because sometimes even we have a bit of miscommunication. ;))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thinking, Knowing, Wishing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [casey_sms (shinygreenwords)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/gifts).



Eduardo sits up in a room he doesn't remember in fewer clothes than he thought he'd be wearing, his hand cramping around amber glass and his throat feeling stripped bare. Idly he notes, as he fights to get his eyes open without his brain curdling and dying from the light they're exposed to, that something in this room smells hideously awful.

It only takes a peek through clenched eyelids, eyelashes protecting him from the harshest sun peeking through the window, for it all to come rushing back. And his stomach rolls, the nausea almost pushing him to be sick all over himself before he swallows and puts his hand, cool and damp with sweat, over his forehead and soothes it back.

Oh. So that's what the smell is.

He moves carefully as he picks himself up from up against the wall of whatever room he's in, not wanting to tempt his stomach to rebel any more than it already is. Where is he? It smells starched and generic beneath the almost overwhelming smell of regurgitated food somewhere out of his view, so his best guess is a hotel room. But he doesn't remember the room or even checking  _into_  a hotel: just what came before.

Grabbing onto the corner where the walls meet, blessedly near to where he sat, Eduardo lightly shakes his head and holds his breath a little so he doesn't have to smell anything as he steps gingerly, pushing through his aches to get to the bedroom. Thankfully, the smell isn't coming from there, and disappears almost immediately when he closes the door and rests his forehead against the painted wood, exhaling heavily.

It's vague, the memory, but more comforting than the blackness that comes after, during which he apparently spent money on this room and ended up drinking himself into catatonia, from what he's gathered so far.

Portuguese, as easy to hear and understand as breathing: _you're useless_ ,  _a sentimental fool_ ,  _it is inexplicable, you being my son, Eduardo_.

Sharp blue eyes sunken into purple hollows over pale cheeks without a dimple in sight, softening and falling to the table. His own voice:  _I was your only friend. You had one friend._

Losing Mark, for real, for good, and any shaky ground he had ever managed to gain toward his father's elusive approval gone along with it, when he had called and bitterly related to his family all the parts of the depositions he was allowed. It was sickening, how much both things meant to him, when they could vanish so easily, barely leaving any trace beyond the invisible treads Eduardo could feel whether they were seen or not.

Well.

That explains the bottle, too, and probably the drunken stupor to precede it. 

Because honestly, just thinking of it, realizing he has so little to show for his righteous indignation toward Mark: no apology, nothing but hush money, blood money he fought for by forcing guilt from Mark and his lawyers. Nothing but the last glimpse of Mark as he went for a steak that money would probably be paying for.

And his father wasn't even proud of him, for being ruthless just this once and taking back what he had given. He thought him ridiculous, undeserving of what he had gotten out of Mark.

Just thinking of it, remembering it, he wants to grab the nearest bottle and drown in the sweet escape alcohol offers from thoughts, from the self-flagellation he cannot stop, from the hopeless agony he doesn't have the power to end.

The worst part is not thinking, though, not wondering, not wishing. No, the worst part is  _knowing_. 

 _Knowing_  brings tears to his eyes, tears he would blame on the strangling grasp of his hangover...if there were anybody he had to justify himself to. 

 _Knowing_ , now that he's been through everything again, that Mark made the right decision, no matter how much it hurt, for Facebook, for Mark's idea to flourish. Because Eduardo  _was_  a terrible CFO; he should have gone to Palo Alto, he should have ignored his father's pride in the internship, his mother's sweet smiles whenever he mentioned having a pretty girlfriend, and he should have been there to usurp Sean's control before it grew the way it had.

What has he to show for the decisions he made then? Facebook forcibly pried from Mark's hands. No Mark. Barely anything but disdain from his parents; his mother  _does_  pity him silently, but that's no better than the disdain. 

 _Knowing_  that he should have talked to Mark without lawyers first, should have realized humiliating him and trying to drag his creation out from under him would result in nothing but anger from his be—his former best friend.

 _Knowing_  in hindsight that losing the approval from his father he never even  _had_  or, maybe,  _could_  have, hurt nowhere near as much as realizing Mark wanted as little to do with him now as he had wanted to do with him then, that fucking night in Palo Alto when he had smashed Mark's laptop and spat words with which he had meant to break Mark just as badly.

Eduardo presses his face into his hands and muffles any noises as he drops onto the bed. It's horrifying, how he looks for Mark's smell on his sofa or his bed, so used to finding it stronger than his own, stronger than anything. It's awful, how he can't bring himself to remove Mark from his cell phone even though he can't bring himself to call either. It's breaking him, how much he misses the curls, the smirks, the wit, the  _needing_  him. 

 _Knowing_  somewhere he's locked far and deep inside himself that he was in love, that if Mark had looked up just for a second and said he needed  _Eduardo_ , not what he could give, not what he could be to Mark, but just  _him_ , none of this would have ever happened. He would have clung to Mark with his dying breaths if he had had that.

Instead he clings to his own hair, fingers clutched deep in the brown knots, sticky with the residue of the product he's used since he was old enough to pronounce its name. He clings to himself and to the money, because that's his worth to Mark, to his father: his success, his  _person_ , is valued at 600 million dollars.

It's probably selfish to wish that just once, just  _someone_  (and if it were Mark, God, if it were  _Mark_ ), would find him irreplaceable—priceless.

But he can't help thinking it for a moment anyway, as he scrubs at his face and crawls into the pressed sheets of the cold hotel bed.

He can't help wishing anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Fiction. Fan fiction. Based upon what was created by: fans of the Facebook story who turned it into a book, and the fans of that book who turned it into a movie, and the fans of that movie who turned it into one sexy man pining after an equally sexy man (or vice versa).
> 
> Written for the Winter TSN-A-THON. A BILLION DOLLARS ISN’T COOL, YOU KNOW WHAT’S COOL? TEAM PARKER.


End file.
